Home Affairs minister and Definitely Not The Prime Minister Peter Dutton has put a full-stop on his turgid week of failure by having yet another incident unveiled where he bizarrely and personally intervened in the case of a young au pair who was under threat of deportation.
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Even weirder, this latest case involves Gillon McLachlan, the CEO of the AFL.
The Guardian reports this afternoon that Dutton used his discretionary powers to grant a visa to a young French woman who was detained at Adelaide International Airport in October 2015.
This case follows a similar line to two other cases brought against Dutton which occurred in June and November 2015. Much like in those two, this latest one involves an Au Pair – this time a 27-year-old French national by the name of Alexandra Deuwel – being detained at the airport on suspicion that she was planning to work in Australia while entering on a tourist visa.
Where this one gets interesting is that it concerned relatives of McLachlan, with the AFL CEO apparently personally reaching out to Dutton’s office on their behalf.
The yarn goes that Deuwel had previously worked as an au pair for McLachlan’s relatives Callum and Skye MacLachlan, a surname with the same pronunciation but a slightly different spelling to Gillon’s, just to make writing this story up all the more annoying.
On this particular trip, Deuwel was reportedly returning to the country to visit the MacLachlans when she was detailed. An official working for McLachlan caught wind of the story via the MacLachlans, and subsequently reached out to Dutton’s chief of staff Craig Maclachlan (different spelling again) to raise the case.
So McLachlan reached out to Maclachlan on behalf of the MacLachlans. Got it? Bloody hell.
Dutton is said to have granted Deuwel a tourist visa within 24 hours of her arrival, using his discretionary powers under the Migration Act.
More to that, documents obtained by the ABC indicate that Dutton did so on the grounds that granted Deuwel the visa was “in the public interest,” a “humanitarian act,” and was “in the interests of Australia as a humane and generous society.”
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Spokespeople for the AFL have steadfastly denied any wrongdoing by McLachlan in his contacting of Maclachlan to help the MacLachlans – what a world to live in where you can just call up the fucking minister to sort out a mate’s visa problems, I tell you.
Meanwhile, a Senatorial enquiry into Dutton’s au pair doings is due to report to Parliament on September 11th.
Presumably, at that point, we’ll all finally know just what the bloody hell is the go with these au pairs.
